Legged robots

This up-to-date text and reference is designed to present the fundamental principles of robotics with a strong emphasis on engineering applications and industrial solutions based on robotic technology. It can be used by practicing engineers and scientists -- or as a text in standard university courses in robotics. The book has extensive coverage of the major robotic classifications, including Wheeled Mobile Robots, Legged Robots, and the Robotic Manipulator. A central theme is the importance of kinematics to robotic principles. The book is accompanied by a CD-ROM with MATLAB simulations....

Scientists often have the feeling that, through their work, they are learning about
some aspect of themselves. Physicists see this connection in their work; so do,
for example, psychologists and chemists. In the study of robotics, the connection
between the field of study and ourselves is unusually obvious. And, unlike a science
that seeks only to analyze, robotics as currently pursued takes the engineering bent
toward synthesis. Perhaps it is for these reasons that the field fascinates so many
of us.

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When they hear the word ‘robot’, many people immediately think of the R2-D2 or the
robots of the film I, Robot. These are robots similar to humans in some ways, but not in
all. There are many kinds of robot, one major group being the mobile robots, sometimes
called mobile platforms. Examples of mobile robots include the human-like robots
mentioned above and a wide range that mimic animals. Some walk about on six legs, like
insects, and others jump around like frogs.

Most research in robotics centers on the control and equations of motion for
multiple link and multiple degree-of-freedom armed, legged, or propelled systems. A
great amount of effort is expended to plot exacting paths for systems built from
commercially available motors and motor controllers. Deficiencies in component and
subsystem performance are often undetected until the device is well past the initial design
stage.

One example of the application of this new theory is in the context of robotic
locomotion.For a large class of land-based locomotion systems—included legged
robots, snake-like robots, and wheeled mobile robots—it is possible to model the
motion of the system using the geometric phase associated with a connection on
a principal bundle (see KRISHNAPRASAD [1990], KELLY &MURRAY [1995] and
references therein).